I'm not good at cooking. I seldom cook at home, but a cooking class of udon wheat noodles, whose lecturer was my friend, was held today. I attended it with my second daughter. Udon wheat noodles are used in various dishes and people usually get the noodles from shops. Today's class was meant to make the noodles themselves.
Udon is one of the traditional foods in Japan. Specifically, Kagawa Prefecture, next to my home Ehime Prefecture, boasts the greatest consumption of udon wheat noodles among all the prefectures in Japan. With its dry climate suitable for growing wheat, it was an ideal location for udon production. It's been going on here for over 300 years.
I'll write how they're made. The ingredients are simply wheat flour, salt, and water. The first step is making salt water. The amount of salt is adjusted carefully in accordance with the day's temperature and humidity. The salt water is mixed with the flour to make the dough. The kneading must be done thoroughly by hand to squeeze out any excess air from the dough. The dough is then tramped on. By applying pressure on it like in the picture below, the protein in the dough forms a sticky substance called gluten.
Normally, the dough has to rest overnight, but our class was restricted in time and the dough was left for an hour and cut to the suitable size. Even so, the taste was great!
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